Loading and unloading of cargo or luggage to and from air planes is a hard, stressful and crampy job. So far three persons have generally been involved in the work consisting of loading of cargo or luggage from a transport carriage standing on the ground to its final place in the cargo hold of the air plane, and unloading of the cargo or luggage from the cargo hold of the air plane to the transport carriage on the ground, respectively.
The loading has generally been made in that one person drags a carriage filled up with cargo or luggage to a position adjacent the air plane, a first loader man lifts and carries the luggage from the transport carriage to a conveyor belt extending from the ground to the luggage hold of the air plane, on which conveyor the luggage is transported as far as to the hold hatch of the air plane; a second loader man, who is sitting on his heels close to the opening of the narrow, often only 90 cm high hold, receives the luggage from the conveyor and throws it further into the hold; a third loader man, who is likewise sitting on his heels at the inner end of the hold receives the luggage (cargo) from the second loader, lifts the luggage, turns round together with the luggage and stows the luggage as deep in the hold as possible.
The job environment is very straining, especially for the second and the third loader persons. The loaders are sitting on their heels in the low, often only 90 cm high luggage hold, and they have to lift and carry the luggage, to rotate together with the luggage, and they have to throw or stow, respectively, the luggage which can be of the most various shapes and can have very varying weight. The loaders further work under great press of time, since it is many times depending on the loader persons if the air plane can keep its time schedules.
Also, the above mentioned first load attending person has a hard job involving, at least in some cases, to drag the transport carriage as far as to the load band conveyor, and also to lift and carry the luggage or cargo from the transport carriage to the conveyor. Especially in winters there can be skid accidents when the transport carriage, which is often very heavy, has to be dragged from the parking place as far as to the hold conveyor.
The object of the invention therefore is to solve the problem of providing a method and an apparatus for facilitating the job with loading of goods into and unloading of goods from highly located, narrow spaces like luggage or cargo holds of an air plane.